NRA bill would OK guns in cars at work

MiamiHerald.com ^ | Feb. 08, 2006 | MARC CAPUTO

[neverdem]

TALLAHASSEE

A bill being pushed by the NRA to allow people to keep guns in their cars on workplace parking lots faces a tough challenge from the powerful Florida Chamber of Commerce.

TALLAHASSEE - The National Rifle Association is pushing a bill that would penalize Florida employers with prison time and lawsuits if they prohibit people from keeping guns in their cars at workplace parking lots.

But the proposal is facing stiff opposition from a group just as powerful in the state capital as the NRA: Florida's biggest business lobby.

Mark Wilson, a vice president of Florida's Chamber of Commerce, which represents 136,000 businesses, said the proposal, to be voted on today in a House committee, is ''an all-out assault'' on employer-employee relations that intrudes on private property rights.

With other business groups expected to join in, the widespread opposition to the NRA bill sets the stage for a rare power struggle between two of the Legislature's mightiest lobbies. And some political observers predict that, for one of the first times in recent history, the NRA will lose in the Legislature of a state where one of every 49 people has a concealed weapons permit and an estimated six million own firearms.

Bill sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, said he filed the legislation to prevent ''back-door gun control.'' In the past two years, he has successfully sponsored bills limiting lawsuits against gun ranges, preventing cops from compiling electronic lists of gun owners and expanding people's rights to use deadly force if they feel threatened outside their homes.

''We just disagree that the business community's private property rights trumps my Second Amendment rights,'' Baxley said, noting he doesn't personally support carrying firearms in the workplace.

Under the bill, if business owners ban guns in cars on workplace parking lots, they could get sued and charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. The bill has an exception for places like schools, where guns are banned by law.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who noted he helped reshape the controversial gun-range bill, said he's uncommitted right now and wants to ``let things develop a little bit.''

The measure was inspired by a case out of Oklahoma in 2002, when a dozen paper mill workers were fired after bosses found out they had guns in their cars. Oklahoma lawmakers passed a law similar to the Florida proposal, and business owners sued in federal court. Among them: ConocoPhillips. The NRA then launched a boycott, replete with billboards saying, ''ConocoPhillips is no friend of the Second Amendment.'' Since then, four states have passed laws like Oklahoma's, seven are considering them, and five killed the idea with relatively little debate, said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

He said the Florida legislation is faring badly because it tells big business what to do.

''I don't know what the NRA is smoking,'' Hamm said. ``They're taking on the business lobby, which is just foolish.''

Wilson, the Florida chamber executive, said employers have the right to regulate what happens on their property ``just like we have dress codes, just like we have all kinds of things. As soon as we allow a national organization to decide employment terms between an employee and an employer, we've gone too far.''

Wilson added that ``this seems to be a collision between the Second Amendment rights and property rights of homeowners and businesses.''

But the NRA's Florida lobbyist, Marion Hammer, said the federal and state constitutions don't expressly recognize employer rights to regulate behavior.

''The Constitution gives you the right to bear arms,'' she said. ``It doesn't say you have a right to come to work nude or come to work wearing a bathing suit, or how long your hair can be or whether you have facial hair or whether you come to work smelling because you haven't taken a bath.''

Hammer said she's not worried about taking on the chamber of commerce: ``The chamber represents self-interests. NRA represents the people. I fear nothing, except losing freedom and losing rights.''

Miami Herald staff writer Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report. mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

[paul51]

Come onto someones private property...

In your example, the issue is trespass and has nothing to do with free speech

[LibKill]

I have to ask one little question.

Why are you afraid of your employees?

[Nachoman]

If my car, parked in your employer's parking lot got damaged, would the employer be liable? I doubt it. That would imply strongly that my car is my property no matter where it is parked. So long as I have nothing illegal in my vehicle, the employer has no right to object to its contents.

[B4Ranch]

First it was Rhodesia then SA now America paying the price of silence.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/518988/posts

[Blue Jays]

Hi Young Scholar-

"...There's no need to get the police involved; the company could just fire the employee..."

---

Try firing a dozen men and women who have been faithfully working at the factory for decades and see if tempers don't start to flare.

In the case of the shameful Weyerhauser terminations, firearms were found locked in private vehicles during hunting season in rural Oklahoma. Most of them went hunting either before or after their shift, so it was only normal for a firearm to be inside. Several of the workers who lost their jobs said they have been leaving their guns in their vehicles for many, many hunting seasons.

This isn't an urban area where thousands of people lose jobs everyday and one just moves on to the next place. We're talking about a plant in a rural setting where Weyerhauser is the primary employer for many square miles. These are innocent parents with kids just barely making ends meet. Would YOU want to be the manager telling them to pack up their stuff and collect their last paycheck? Can you see where someone gets nervous and calls the police [government] while this is happening?

~ Blue Jays ~

[Young Scholar]

Try firing a dozen men and women who have been faithfully working at the factory for decades and see if tempers don't start to flare.

I was speaking legally. Personally, I think it would probably be stupid to fire people for this, or even make the rule in the first place. I'm surprised Weyerhauser even tried it in a place where so many people own guns, given the costs to employee morale.

[Blue Jays]

Hi Young Scholar-

It looks like we're reading from the same sheet of music. Weyerhauser technically had the legal right to do what they did...but it was a lousy business move promoted by shortsighted managers. I'll suspect that factory still doesn't produce widgets like it did in the past.

They would have been smarter to place posters in the lunchrooms and send notices in the paychecks announcing firearms were no longer allowed on company property...if they felt that strongly about it. Having an unannounced search in the parking lot was stupid. I live thousands of miles from where this occured, but I go out of my way to avoid Weyerhauser timber and paper products whenever possible. That is no way to treat decent and hard-working personnel.

~ Blue Jays ~

[joanie-f]

Well reasoned and well expressed, Jeff.

Especially, ‘ ...in none of this have I violated your right to bear arms. I have asked you as the owner of the property in question to not bring them ... you are still free to choose either not to come, to come without them, or, as I have said, to bring them anyway and then be responsible for that decision.

I haven’t the time to read all of the responses on this thread just now (although I will when time permits), so forgive any repetition of opinion.

You and I are well aware of each others’ resolute determination to protect and defend our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But our Second Amendment RKBA does not trump the right of others to define what they are willing to abide on their own private property.

Recent government abuses of the once well-contained concept of eminent domain have certainly brought to the forefront the need to retain private property rights as among our three most important Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

And the Florida Chamber of Commerce vs. the NRA is yet another example (albeit significantly less offensive) of encroachment on that same right. The NRA may view its bill as noble, but its concept of nobility, in this case, is misplaced.

A business has every right to decide whether its employees may bring potentially dangerous items onto its property – especially, but not only, due to safety and insurance concerns. A good business, similarly, would view ensuring the safety of its employees as an obligation. If mandating that guns be disallowed on its property falls under that umbrella, then any employee who insists on carrying a gun to that place of employment is free to find employment elsewhere.

Such a business is not infringing on its employees’ RKBA. It is merely defining the employees’ RKBA on private property. What is the advantage of private property over public, if not the inherent ability to define the conditions under which it exists or is disposed of?

Among other carefully enumerated rights, the Constitution also guarantees us the rights to free speech and free assembly. But I have the right to curb your speech on my property, simply by telling you that, if you take the name of the Lord in vain in my home, I am going to ask you to leave. And, if you decide that you want to assemble a group of people in my front yard before marching down to picket in support of a nearby abortion clinic, I have a right to tell you that your freedom of such assembling ends at my property line.

With the exception of the right to life, your individual rights end where my private property begins.

At the same time, I think there are at least two (and probably more, that I haven’t considered) liberty-eroding forces that could be at work in a business’s decision to ban guns on its property:

(1) One concern would be whether the ban on guns is the result of government interference with business practices (such as the often unreasonable dictates handed down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration). If a business’s decision not to allow guns on-site is solely the result of government strong-arm tactics, then the ban takes on an entirely different property rights vs. individual liberty context.

(2) Another concern would be whether the ban on guns is a result of trial lawyer machinations. If, say, a business has been sued because of the irresponsible action of one employee (similarly to the way gun manufacturers are sued when one individual uses one of their guns in the commission of a crime), then those businesses are being extorted into submission, and the banning of guns, by the corrupt legal/judicial system rather than by a purely business decision.

IMO, the bottom line is: If there is no inherent government coercion or legal extortion involved in the decision, a business (just as would a private individual) has every right to tell you that your gun is not allowed on its/his property.

~ joanie ….

[KoRn]

"It amazes me how some think the property owner has no say if people bring arms onto their property.And they somehow think they have freedoms of speech, religion, and the like while on someones private property, when in fact they do not."

I don't think this has been thought through to its end by many of the 2nd Amendment activists. Almost impulsively, whenever someone wants to allow, by law, firearms to be permitted somewhere, they are all for it. Be damned any deeper thought.

I would like to know if anyone who supports this thinks it would be ok if your state passed legislation allowing anyone to carry a firearm on your property who wanted to, whether you permitted it or not regardless of your wishes?

[Squantos]

Won't at all....title 18 USC prevails to the best of my knowledge. Posted items are considered contraband even if it's just a tootsie pop or blue socks. If it's on the list it's verboten. Commanders and Uncle Sugar get to make their own rules on their own sites pretty much.....

[spunkets]

"I would like to know if anyone who supports this thinks it would be ok if your state passed legislation allowing anyone to carry a firearm on your property who wanted to, whether you permitted it or not regardless of your wishes?"

The interior of someone's vehicle is not the workplace and it is not the employer's property. The employer has no jurisdiction inside someone's car at all. The employer never had that jurisdiction, nor did they ever attempt to take it before.

[Doctor Stochastic]

At a former employer, not federal property, but property owned by a contractor, one was not allowed to have firearms, cameras, recorders, knives, illegal drugs, alcohol, personal computers, electronic notebooks, or cell phones on the property. This applied to parking lots too. Cars, bicycles, people, backpacks, dogs, etc. were subject to search. Similarly for those passing through.

[KoRn]

Where is that vehicle located?

[spunkets]

"Where is that vehicle located?"

Doesn't matter. Only the owner has jurisdiction over the interior of the vehicle.

[Squantos]

Agree with most of what ya said cept the private property thing. Unless you have controlled / posted access to your private property then what I have in my vehicle or on my person is legal until you ask me to not bring said items on your property and post or gate it.

Now if I have put 17 years at acme inc making nerf cars errr whatever and acme inc decides to ban something in the middle of my career I don't think that is proper either. New employees can be briefed as to their choice or lack of in the employment agreements but I would grandfather the current crop of workers for such a rule if I were the judge in such a case. Through simple attrition such a policy IMO is legal if access to the property is limited, posted and controlled by a electronic or live rent a cop gate.

This argument has been on FR a few gazillion times so I suspect some will and won't agree but having carried since the ripe old age of 17 years old in some form or another and worked for Uncle Sugar and or his contractors this is what I have experienced and observed first hand.

Trust me I have complained and whined when defanged of my personal property, ability to defend myself and made to rely on others for my protection but it is my choice to quit and carry or stay and suffer.

I won't work where I can't carry........

I won't spend my money where I can't carry ......

I won't support any alleged pro gun organization that allows such a rule to pass muster.

Hope yer well and the new Casa is up and running !

Stay safe !!!

[Blue Jays]

Hi Doctor-

"...[O]ne was not allowed to have firearms, cameras, recorders, knives, illegal drugs, alcohol, personal computers, electronic notebooks, or cell phones on the property. This applied to parking lots too. Cars, bicycles, people, backpacks, dogs, etc. were subject to search. Similarly for those passing through..."

---

How could one just "pass through" a secured environment like that? Sounds like a military base to me.

~ Blue Jays ~

[KoRn]

"Doesn't matter. Only the owner has jurisdiction over the interior of the vehicle."

Hypothetically, if I didn't want people to bring firearms onto the premises of a company that I own, and I find out that an employee has a firearm in their vehicle it's getting towed and searched by the police. If a firearm is found, the employee is then terminated.

Just a disclaimer: I have a firearm in my vehicle at all times. My employer doesn't have clear premises rule with regards to the workplace as a whole.

[Minuteman23]

Joanie and Jeff, I never thought I would hear both of you defending the banning of guns. There's a lot of food for thought to digest here, I'll be back.

[yarddog]

You are simply wrong.

A person's rights are the same whether they are on your property or not.

You mistakently think the fact that you can order someone off your property means you get to dictate their actions. Of course the fact you control the property gives you influence over them, this is not a right to violate their person.

A parking lot does not provide the same level of control as the inside of a home.

You may not allow someone to be in your lot but you have no right to invade his vehicle to determine what he has in it.

I am not arguing strict legal doctrine as we all know the government gives you very little actual control of your own property. I don't agree with that, but do agree they have an interest in keeping you from abusing your employees freedoms at your whim.

What is in my car parked in an area open to the public is just plain none of your business unless it poses some immediate danger to you.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Look at the maps. Some public highways run through "restricted" property. (Not a military base though.) Still, one isn't forced to take a job under these conditions.

Note that phone company personel, furniture delivery people, etc., also must follow the same rules.